Research And Reports

Calling the Women's Educational Equity Act "a small but visible
focus of the federal commitment to equal education opportunity," a
citizen's group has published a report outlining the ways in which the
1974 act has forwarded the interests of wom-en and girls in
education.

"Catching Up: A Review of the Women's Educational Equity Act
Program" provides information on the program's history and budget, and
includes a description of the National Advisory Council on Women's
Educational Programs, which was established through weea to advise
federal officials and the public on the educational needs of women and
girls. The act is up for Congressional reauthorization this year.

"In its short life, the Women's Educational Equity Act program has
been responsible for many landmark projects in women's educational
equity," according to the report, which describes case histories in
such areas as vocational, mathematics and science, and rural
education.

"We are truly a 'nation at risk' if we continue to restrict the
educational and occupational opportunities of over one half of our
nation," members of the Citizens Council on Women's Education write in
urging legislators to reauthorize the act.

The 12-member council was established in 1982 by the National
Coalition for Women and Girls in Education. Its purposes, according to
a spokesman, are to protect the guarantees of educational equity in
federal legislation, to make recommendations to the Congress, and to
inform the public about educational equity and attempts to halt
progress toward this goal.

Copies of the report are available for $3 from the Citizens Council
on Women's Education, 2401 Virginia Ave., N.W., Room 401, Washington,
D.C. 20036.

Over the past 13 years, California has been able to absorb an estimated
3 million immigrants, who have created a market for goods and services
and a demand for more teachers and other public-services workers,
according to a new study.

While the wave of new immigrants has caused the state few economic
problems, researchers conducting the study contend that it has created
serious problems for the school systems responsible for the education
of immigrant children.

The study, "The Fourth Wave: California's Newest Immigrants," is
based on an analysis of 1980 census data, school records, and
interviews with state officials. A book on the study's findings will be
released later this year.

Thomas Muller, who directed the study for the Urban Institute, a
Washington-based nonprofit research organization, said the state's
expenditures for educating the children of immigrants far exceeded the
sum total of the taxes their parents paid.

As a result, Mr. Muller said, the schools are having difficulty
absorbing students, especially those who do not speak English. This
year, he said, more than half of the students enrolled in the Los
Angeles Unified School District are Hispanic, and school officials are
faced with providing costly services to meet the special needs of those
students.

"What we are saying is that the route of advancement has been
through the educational system by developing learning and language
skills," Mr. Muller explained. But he added, "That process does not
appear to be working as well for Mexican immigrants as it has for Asian
immigrants," because Mexican immigrants have "come from rural areas and
have less than an 8th-grade education."

"We believe in the long run this could be a serious issue because
[the students'] full participation in society will be based on their
ability" to learn skills, according to Mr. Muller.

Eighty percent of the nation's large-city school districts provide
their students with sex education "in some form," according to the
results of a recent survey of 179 school districts in cities with at
least 100,000 residents.

But rather than provide separate sex-education courses, most
districts integrate the material with other curriculum subjects,
authors Freya L. Sonenstein and Karen J. Pittman write in their
research report, "The Availability of Sex Education in Large City
School Districts."

The report, supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services' office of family planning, was conducted by the
Urban Institute under the sponsorship of the National Association of
State Boards of Education. The report appeared in the January/February
issue of Family Planning Perspectives, a journal published by the Alan
Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of the Planned Parent-hood
Federation of America.

Ninety-four percent of the school districts that provide sex
education do so in order to "promote rational and informed
decisionmaking about sexuality," the survey reveals. About 77 percent
of the district officials surveyed reported that their programs are
designed to "increase a student's knowledge of reproduction," and 40
percent said the goal was to reduce unwanted teen-age pregnancy.

Large numbers of students are participating in sex-education
programs, according to Ms. Sonenstein and Ms. Pittman, "perhaps because
almost half of the districts have compulsory courses."

"The mean student participation rates are 73 percent for elementary
schools and 76 percent for both junior and senior high schools," the
authors write.

Principal Throws Out the Gauntlet, So To Speak

The gloves came off in Bound Brook, N.J., last week in a controversy
over whether high-school students could wear a single glove throughout
the school day.

At the center of the highly publicized dispute between the students
and their principal, Joseph Donnel-ly, was a style point inspired by
the singing superstar Michael Jackson: the wearing of a single,
sequined glove on his right hand.

Several students began wearing a white glove to imitate and pay
homage to Mr. Jackson. Many also untied their sneakers--another
Mi-chael Jackson trademark.

But school officials barred the single-glove look, threatening to
give discipline demerits to any student caught wearing one in school.
(Students were also told to start tying their shoes.)

Mr. Donnelly said the gloves distract from schoolwork and interfere
with students in typing class, gym, and machine shop. He said he had
earlier banned the wearing of black gloves by a different student group
striving for a "tough" look, and therefore could not allow special
treatment of the "white glovers." The action prompted a fourth of the
student body--most of whom weren't wearing gloves--to sign a petition
asking the school board to resolve the dispute. About 60 students and
70 parents and teachers attended a meeting last Monday night to protest
the banning, but the board deferred to Mr. Donnelly.

As of late last week, the issue of the gloves was back in, er, on
Mr. Donnelly's hand(s). He planned to meet with the student council and
poll the faculty on the situation.

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